Christians Rally Around Israel Back Home and in the Holy Land

With an endless barrage of rockets reigning down on Israel over the past three days, Christians in the United States are rallying around the Jewish State.

Last night, approximately 4,000 people called into one of five conference call lines to get an update on the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories from Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer.

The “emergency conference call briefing” was sponsored by Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and moderated by CUFI Founder and Chairman, Pastor John Hagee.

After a brief introduction by the Pastor, the ambassador started the conversation with sentiments of gratitude toward CUFI and to the “millions of Christians throughout America” for having “Jerusalem and the State of Israel in your hearts and your prayers.”

The ambassador began his update informing the listeners that “over the last three days we’ve had over 400 rockets fired at Israel. We’ve had about 6 million people who have had to rush to bomb shelters, that’s about three-quarters of our population. In American terms, that would be like over 200 million Americans who, over the course of two or three days, had to rush into bomb shelters.”

After explaining the situation in Israel, Dermer discussed the goals of the current military action, referred to as “Operation Protective Edge.”

“We have a clear goal for this operation: to end these rocket attacks and restore quiet, not just for day, not just a week, but for a very long period of time, something the people of Israel have not enjoyed for a long time.”

The ambassador also explained, “Prime Minister (Benjamin) Netanyahu did everything he could to try and get the other side to try and stand down and end the rocket attacks. Unfortunately, that did not happen and Hamas escalated the situation, so now we are where we are and the Prime Minister has to take the necessary measures in order to protect our population.”

Dermer clarified that Netanyahu has received authorization from Israel’s Security Cabinet to “mobilize” 40,000 Israeli military reservists, but that 20,000 have actually been “called up.”

Listeners learned that the “Iron Dome” air defense system developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and financed by the United States has been “truly amazing,” with a greater than 85% success rate intercepting incoming rockets from the Palestinian territories.

Dermer was adamant about restoring a “moral distinction” regarding the conflict. He expressed that Hamas judges its success by how many civilians they can kill, while Israel views each Palestinian casualty as an indication of “failure” for their military.

Listeners learned about the precautions and efforts Israel implements to prevent civilian casualties.

Dermer continued, “I am not aware of a single military in the history of the world that has taken a greater action to keep the civilians of the other side out of harm’s way.”